BACKWARD GLANCES - Enraged prisoner sets police car on fire

Thursday

May 10, 2012 at 12:01 AMMay 10, 2012 at 9:14 AM

See what was happening in Redwood Falls 50, 25, and 10 years ago this week.

Joshua Dixon, Staff Writer

1962—50 years ago
• To publicize the upcoming fifth annual Minnesota Inventors Congress, the group sponsored a “What would you like to see invented?” essay contest on WCCO radio.
• A 175-pound tire and rim snapped off a semi-truck and rolled several blocks down highway 19 before falling into the Redwood River between the dam and the Bridge St. Bridge.
• The bears in the Ramsey Park zoo went on a temporary vacation while their cage was remodeled with a new cement floor and bathtub.
• Sophomore Tom Huhnerkoch set a new Redwood Falls High School shot put record when he tossed the iron ball 46 feet, four inches during the New Ulm invitational.
The previous record of 46 feet, two inches was set by Bob Paffrath in 1937.
• Gean O’Leary, the RFHS school board’s only member of Irish descent, went on record testifying that if a second foreign language were to be taught by the school district, it should be French.
After the school board meeting, the other board members thanked him for not recommending Irish.
1987—25 years ago
• Benoit Schoen donated $3,000 to help pay for flowers to be planted each spring on the concrete island at the top of the Mill St. / Highway 19/71 “Y” intersection.
• Workers using a cutting torch accidentally started a grass fire that destroyed the construction trailer housing the Lake Redwood dam renovation project.
• Two warm weather records fell over one weekend, with the town hitting 94 degrees on May 9, and 96 degrees on May 10. The May 9 record held since hitting 92 degrees back in 1928.
• RFHS grad Leif Espeland left with the St. Olaf College football team for a 10 day tour of Norway to demonstrate the game to the Norwegian populace.
• Two local electronics firms were hired to help figure out why residents of western Redwood County suddenly began losing their TV reception when a new antenna went up near Vesta.
2002—10 years ago
• Electronics technicians installed a steel pipe onto the Bridge St. bridge to hold fiber optic cables to connect the western side of town with high speed Internet.
• Entertainer Dick Smothers, of The Smothers Brothers, stopped by Subway for lunch before performing at Jackpot Junction Casino.
Smothers waited in line just like everyone else, chatting with the other customers and posing for photos.
• An enraged Granite Falls man, picked up for driving his car into a ditch near town, was being driven back to Redwood Falls by the police when he somehow set the back seat of the squad car on fire.
He kicked out a back window and tried running away near the Super America store, but was captured with the aid of a taser and mace.
• Pine Tree Dairy celebrated 55 years of delivering milk products to the area.
• If you looked at exactly the right place over the western horizon at night, you could see Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn all grouped together within a few degrees of each other.
If you missed it, you’ll have to wait a few years — the planets won’t arrange themselves that way again until September, 2040.